Caryl Roese

Caryl Roese, ARAM., M.Ed., LRAM.
Caryl Roese, nee Roberts, was born to parents who were deeply associated with the music that dominated their time and world. The family were chapel-going (Sardis Annibynwyr/Independent) and the great oratorios played a major part in their cultural lives. Her father was a lifelong member of the Ystradgynlais Malevoice Choir and her mother an ardent member of the local grand operatic society. Their daughter's career was therefore bound to follow a path thus culturally predetermined. Caryl attended the local grammar-school and then went on to study singing, piano & organ at the Royal Academy of Music in London. Her tutors there were Olive Groves, Bruce Boyce and Norman Demuth. Concerts given by final-year students of the Academy were much appreciated in her hometown.

1957, Maesydderwen Jubilee Celebration
(in "Faces & Places of the Parish of Ystradgynlais", pl.159, photo T.J.Davies)

Caryl completed her studies at the Royal Academy of Music in 1961, finishing with a Licentiate in singing (LRAM), which also qualified her as a teacher in this branch. Her apprenticeship in operatic singing was served at the RAM in the role of Amor in Gluck's opera Orfeo. In 1988 Caryl re-visited the Academy in an official capacity, as a lifelong member of the Curwen Society. Her former Principle, 90year-old Sir Thomas Armstrong received a Fellowship from the Society. In view of her activities and contribution to music during the following three-and-a-half decades, the RAM honoured her in 1997 by appointing her an Associate for excellence in her profession.

1988, Sir Thomas Armstrong and Caryl Roese (photo RAM)

After the RAM, Middlesex County Council appointed her to two of their Junior Schools in Willesden and Harlsden in London. However, as so often was the case in those days, once a woman married she became subject to her husband's professional priorities. Therefore, before she could carve out a career of her own, Caryl and her husband left for South Africa. Her husband had been posted there by his London Company. Once in Cape Town, however, Caryl's musical skills were much sought after. There followed a prolonged period of touring as a soloist for the Cape Performing Arts Board, and giving regular recital broadcasts on radio for the South African Broadcasting Corporation. Furthermore, she taught at two Girls' High Schools, as well as lectured in the music department at the University of Cape Town. On one occasion she also sang on Kenyan radio and television while on tour in that country. Whilst in Cape Town, she was the president of the Cape Cambrian Society.
Shortly before Caryl left South Africa again for another of her husband's postings, the Cape Perfoming Arts Board establish an Opera Company for which an Opera House, at that time, was being built. Caryl's participation in this new development, was to sing the part of Esmeralda in the opera The Bartered Bride. It was the inauguration performance of the opera company..

1 . 2 . 3

1) 1966, Sacred Music Concert Tour to 25 Towns.
(in "Die Burger", 28.Maart, editorial photo)
3) "Esmeralda" in the opera The Bartered Bride by Smetana.

Thereafter, her husband's occupation took them to brief stays in Stuttgart in Germany and Chicago in the USA. From there they returned to London in 1968. At this point in time Caryl decided to give up her singing career and become a full-time school teacher. She returned to the school she had last taught at in London. While there she constantly was on the lookout for new and interesting teaching approaches and methods. This is how she was introduced to Orff Schulwerk. A course at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria, qualified her to teach the subject with great success. It also introduced her to the emerging interest in World Music.

In 1970, a post for a music lecturer, specialising in Orff-Schulwerk, was offered at the Institute of Higher Education in Cardiff, later to become the University of Wales Institute Cardiff. Caryl was offered the appointment and accepted it. In order to upgrade her qualifications for the job in hand, she persued a BEd. degree course on a part-time basis, followed by a Master's Degree in Education at the University of Wales. In her post as senior lecturer, she concentrated on Orff-Schulwerk but gradually expanded into World Music per se, and wrote a number of papers and publications on the teaching of the subject. There were also opportunities to promote World Music in several television appearances for the Welsh language television channel S4C.

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As one pupil saw "Miss" and her music lesson (in "A Pocket Full of Rounds", 1989).

Eventually, she became Head of Music at UWIC and a school inspector for ESTYN (OFFSTED) in primary and secondary education. In the course of lecturer exchanges with other European universities, she was invited as a guest lecturer to the Universities of Vaxjo/Sweden and Braunschweig/Germany. There, she lectured and gave demonstrations on her wide experience in world music.

In order to broaden students' knowledge of World Music, Caryl took a group of 16 music students on an educational visit to Northern India in 1989. Musically they had been prepared and initiated to Indian music by Indian musicians, who came as invited guest performers/demonstrators to give workshops at UWIC. The tour included visits to Primary Schools, and to private recitals given by local musicians. The students self-financed the tour by giving concerts in Cardiff, sponsored musical events, as well as the usual raffle-ticket and car-boot sales. The tour was a great success, as many of the students have since made several repeat visits to India. Two students even returned there to teach in primary schools for a while.

In 1995 Caryl visited Ghana in West Africa in order to have drumming lessons and to improve her knowledge of the art of African drumming. As mentioned above, Caryl had specialised in Orff-Schulwerk, an approach to music making that involved using percussive instruments, e.g xylophones and especially drums, amongst others. Therefore, to visit the country whose drummers were renowned throughout the whole of the musical world for their skills and prowess, was essential. Carl Orff himself was inspired by the rhythms of African drumming and it was only natural to want to know more about the sources that served him as a guide.
Caryl received tuition from talented young musicians in Kumasi. They represented different styles of drumming from various areas of the country. One of them, of Ashante origin from Southern Ghana, worked as a drummer for the National Museum in Kumasi. The others were from the Dagombe region in Northern Ghana. They belonged to a family of dondo and djembe drum makers who ran their own business in Kumasi.
Her Ghanaian experience significantly enhanced Caryl's knowledge and skills, and she was able to pass on this new information to her students during practical sessions. Many a workshop to teachers and school pupils throughout South Wales helped to spread a more liberal attitude and approach to World Music further afield.

Ashante Drumming
Dagombe Drumming
made especially for 'Madam'.

While in Ghana, Caryl also familiarised herself with the country's textiles. She studied their weaving, printing and dying techniques, and was taught how to weave the long, strips of textiles that are sewn together to make the men's 'toga'.

Besides her professional obligations, Caryl was also involved in extra-mural activities. Having grown up participating regularly in eisteddfodau (she competed in well over 100 local as well as area and national ones), therefore, as an adult and professional musician, she was well qualified to act as an adjudicator at such events. The miner's Eisteddfodau in Porthcawl, the Urdd regionals, School Eisteddfodau, etc., they were all grist to her mill.

Consequently, she also became involved in conducting. Over the years she conducted school and university choirs and eventually took on the Llantrisant Male Voice Choir. Under her guidance they performed not only in England and Wales, but also travelled abroad to Hannover in Germany. The choir also made a recording during her time with them. Whilst in South Africa, Caryl became involved as an advisor to many of the Cape Coloured Choirs and she organised massed singing concerts for them. During this time she took on the Music Directorship of the German Society's Chamber Choir. They were greatly involved in charity work and this meant giving many concerts, in order to gather funds for hospitals that took care of abandoned black and coloured children.

The South Wales Echo, Dec.21, 2001, p.31.

Since her retirement in 2002, Caryl has taken up her interest in the visual arts and has become a student again. For this new chapter of her activities go to "Art & Design" under LINKs (top of page).

Her interest in art was again the result of her upbringing. In 1944, one of Britain's best known artists came to live in Ystradgynlais. His name was Josef Herman. He captured on canvas the life and work of the hard-pressed, coal-mining community in Wales. Caryl's parents became very friendly with both the artist and his wife Catriona MacLeod. Herman and his wife stayed for 10 years and had an indelible influence on Caryl at her most impressionable age - she spent many hours in their company, as well as in their respective studios.